Category: Training

Since discovering Pluralsight just over a year ago, I’ve been bowled over by its quality, value and ever increasing range of instructional videos.

I first became aware of the site when I watched a free ASP.NET MVC 3 video course, which is still available. This gave me a taste of the professionalism of the content, and having a browse around, found that there were literally hundreds of hours of videos on subjects ranging from C# to WF.

Some ten or so years ago, my source of learning was books and newsgroups. The current speed and breadth of software development evolution has made it somewhat difficult for traditional book publishers to produce books at the same pace. Pluralsight’s library is expanding at a rapid rate, and for subjects such as Knockout and Orchard, the content is of a much larger scope than for the comparable printed equivalent.

I subscribe to a monthly $29 subscription model, which entitles me to watch the library of videos on a computer or mobile device. The ‘monthly plus’ option adds in exercise files, certificates and offline viewing. Yearly options are also available and offer a typical discount over the monthly charge. Videos load quickly, and Android and iOS apps have the option of increasing playback speed up to twice the normal rate, useful in many situations.

Whilst the library is largely Microsoft-based, this emphasis is changing, as recent additions of PhoneGap, MySQL and Java exemplify. Despite this, the range of material is most likely to benefit developers who are developing with a Microsoft stack of technologies.